Election 2014: Delaware’s Most Vulnerable Incumbents

Election 2014: Delaware’s Most Vulnerable Incumbents

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I'm El Somnambulo, and I'm a listaholic. Admit it: So are you. Bearing in mind that incumbents need viable challengers in order to be vulnerable, here is a list of those with at least reason to be worried: State Auditor Tom Wagner: A do-nothing R in an increasingly D state. Here's the problem. If a do-nothing R is replaced by a do-nothing D, does it really make any difference? No doubt it does to Tom Wagner. But not to Patrick Harker or Lonnie George. Which is my point. And the problem. State Treasurer Chip Flowers: While the R's talk hopefully, and, IMHO, delusionally, about defeating him, I suspect that any real challenge would come from the Democrats. We'll likely know in 6 months or so whether there will be a party-backed challenger. We might as well get used to Flowers being a polarizing figure by choice. Which would be fine if it was principle, not ego, driving that train. State Senator Greg Lavelle (4th SD): Got 50.8% against Michael Katz. Probably less vulnerable this time, but he's got two more years of anti-gay and pro-gun votes on his record. Will a credible challenger emerge? I know that people expect me to have Ernesto Lopez on this list, but I don't see him as particularly vulnerable. Feel free to make a case. More inside....

Monday Open Thread [7.15.13]

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The Editorial Board of the Independent on the Zimmerman verdict:
[T]he first black president of the United States ventured an early comment, saying that if he had had a son “he would look like Trayvon”. In so saying, Barack Obama pinpointed the truth that a great many white Americans will see a young man up to no good before they see a president’s son. For all the civil rights advances over half a century, personified by the black family now residing in the White House, racism remains pernicious and entrenched. [...] [T]he verdict leaves the impression not just that it is acceptable for an individual in large parts of the US to take the law into his own hands, but that the life of a young black man is cheap. This incendiary case from central Florida – electorally, a swing district of a swing state – shows how far, despite Mr Obama’s election, the US still fails to practise racial equality.
And if you celebrated Zimmerman's verdict, Andrew Sullivan" says you just might be a racist. At the very least you are repellant. And I agree with him.
Zimmerman Not Guilty Open Thread

Zimmerman Not Guilty Open Thread

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I'm as shocked and disgusted as I was last night when I heard. 2nd degree murder was likely a stretch but to acquit this guy from hunting down and killing this kid is an amazing injustice to the rest of us. Today I'm thinking about how to best prepare the kids around me to deal with this open season on them. Jay Smooth is reported to have said yesterday: "The fundamental danger of an acquittal is not riots, it's more George Zimmermans." Quite right.

Erick Erickson Reveals More of the Despicable Me Strategy of the GOP

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Last night, the Texas legislature voted to approve a strict new abortion law, in spite of state polling that noted opposition to this bill and to special sessions to enact it. After an evening of confiscating tampons and maxipads from women entering the Capitol building, Texas Senators took their vote and decided that Texas Government needed to be big enough to interfere with women's health decisions. After the vote, one of CNN's stable of brain-dead conservative commentators posted this on Twitter: